Franklin Affair by Jim Lehrer Read Free Book Online

supposedly joking remarks about Ben’s being asleep during many of the most important sessions of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and other key events of the Revolution. It wasn’t true and it wasn’t funny.
    â€œ
I
will miss you—I miss you now,” said R to Samantha.
    Samantha only breathed into the phone. But R could read her breathing.
Liar!
it exclaimed. Samantha didn’t believe for a second that he actually missed her. Nobody—no woman, that is—ever believed him when he said things like that. He saw it as the cross of his past misdeeds with women that he had to bear. Unfairly bear, for the most part, in his opinion.
    â€œHow
is
the writing coming?” said R.
    â€œSlowly, as always,” Samantha said, her voice now transmitting a fervent desire to hang up. She hated it when he asked her how the writing was coming.
    â€œHancock was a fascinating figure—”
    â€œStop it, R. We’ve been through this many horrible times. ‘John Hancock deserves but a brief couplet or two in any history of the American Revolution,’ unquote. So sayeth the great, the one, the only R. Raymond Taylor, speaking not only for himself but also for the great—and now late—one and only Wallace Stephen Rush.”
    Now it was R’s turn just to breathe into the telephone receiver. She had quoted him accurately. That was what he believed about Hancock and, unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to resist what he considered a professional obligation to tell Samantha so. It was one of those disagreements that continued to rupture their relationship. So be it. Not even love should be able to bend the integrity of a truly serious scholar of hisory! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    â€œWho have you picked up tonight?” Samantha asked.
    â€œSamantha, please!”
    â€œJust an early dinner in the room, a little
Law & Order
on television, and right to bed. Is that it, dearest?” Samantha’s words were drenched in hostility.
    â€œSure, something like that. I’ve got my new laptop, so I might also do some work on my
Washington Post
op-ed piece. I told you about that, didn’t I? They want something on why Franklin is finally getting the popular as well as the serious scholarly attention paid to Washington and Jefferson.”
    â€œYou told me about thirty times—but who’s counting?”
    R took a deep breath of honesty and said, “I am, in fact, meeting a colleague for dinner at Brasserie Perrier.”
    â€œA female colleague?”
    â€œYes, Wally’s chief assistant, Clara Hopkins. You probably will have met her at some function or other. She’s involved in planning the post-funeral arrangements. As you know, Wally appointed me to be his literary executor. I’m pretty sure I’m going to do it. What choice do I have, really—”
    R stopped talking when he realized there was no longer anyone on the other end of the line.
    So much for honesty.
    I will not make a move on Clara Hopkins!
    A short while later they were at the restaurant. R loved the feel of Brasserie Perrier as much its food. It had a fun happy-hour bar with purple walls, velvet bar stools, and a cracked glass mirror. The dining room served high-class French food amid small columns, sparkling wall lanterns, and a huge ripoff of the painting
Nude Descending a Staircase
by Marcel Duchamp.
    No matter what!
    â€œI guess you’re not going to tell me what was in the letter Bill Paine gave you?” Clara said, after they were in the dining room and into their first course and second glass of chardonnay, a dry tight 1997 Meursault.
    Even if she comes on to me.
    â€œThat’s right,” he said lightly. “Wally wanted it kept confidential, and I believe strongly in honoring the wishes of the dead.”
    â€œThat’s quite an honor, being his literary executor.”
    Even if she propositions me.
    â€œThat’s what he